THE FIELD EQUATIONS OF GRAVITATION 26ling me. It is really a shame if two real fellows who have freed themselves to some
extent from this shabby world should not enjoy each other' [E60]. The full story
may never be known. However, in a reply to a query, E. G. Straus wrote to me,
'Einstein felt that Hilbert had, perhaps unwittingly, plagiarized Einstein's
[largely wrong!] ideas given in a colloquium talk at Goettingen.* The way Ein-
stein told it, Hilbert sent a written apology in which he said that '[this talk] had
completely slipped his mind.. ." [SI]. Whatever happened, Einstein and Hilbert
survived. The tone of their subsequent correspondence is friendly. In May 1916
Einstein gave a colloquium on Hilbert's work in Berlin [E61]. On that occasion
he must have expressed himself critically about Hilbert's approach.** In May
1917 he told a student from Goettingen, 'It is too great an audacity to draw
already now a picture of the world, since there are still so many things which we
cannot yet remotely anticipate' [S6], an obvious reference to Hilbert's hopes for a
unification of gravitation and electromagnetism. Einstein was thirty-eight when
he said that. He was to begin his own program for a picture of the world shortly
thereafter. ...References
Al. G. Arvidsson, Phys. Zeitschr. 21, 88 (1920).
Bl. S. J. Barnett, Physica 13, 241 (1933); Phys. Zeitschr. 35, 203 (1934); Rev. Mod.
Phys. 7, 129 (1935).
B2. , Phys. Rev. 6, 239 (1915).
B3. N. Bohr, Phil. Mag. 30, 394 (1915).
B4. S. J. Barnett, Phys. Rev. 10, 7 (1917).
B5. E. Beck, AdP 60, 109 (1919).
B6. Cf. W. Braunbeck, Phys. Zeitschr. 23, 307 (1922) and also the discussion at the
end of [Hla].
Cl. J. Chazy, La Theorie de la Relativite et la Mecanique Celeste, Chap. 4. Gauthier-
Villars, Paris, 1928.
Dl. Cf., e.g., Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 4, pp. 324, 327. Scribner's, New
York, 1971.
El. A. Einstein, PAW, 1915, p. 844.
E2. , letter to J. Laub, July 22, 1913.
E3. , letter to H. A. Lorentz, August 14, 1913.
E4. , letter to P. Ehrenfest, undated, probably winter 1913-14.
E5. —, letter to H. Zangger, March 10, 1914.
E6. , Viertelj. Schr. Naturf. Ges. Zurich 59, 4 (1914).
E7. , letter to M. Besso, early March 1914; EB, p. 52.*I am forced to assume that this is in reference to the June-July talks, since it is hard to believe
that Einstein visited Goettingen in November 1915.
"Einstein to Ehrenfest: 'I don't like Hilbert's presentation. .. unnecessarily special. .. unneces-
sarily complicated. .. not honest in structure (vision of the Ubermensch by means of camouflaging
the methods) .. .' [E62].